A Friendship Broken
by fishclarinet16
Summary: Alternate ending to LOTF, written for a class assignment. R&R!


_This new ending was written as part of an assignment for my English class. At the end is the paragraph I wrote summarizing the meaning of the events in my ending. R&R s'il vous plait!_

Ralph ran, ran through the bushes and brambles, past flaming trees and grass. His lungs burned from the black, acrid smoke that seemed to envelop the forest. Cries of warfare from the savages echoed in the distance. Coughing, Ralph leaped over a fallen tree trunk. He looked behind to see a spear flying towards him. Ralph flung himself flat onto the grass and heard the whoosh of the spear soaring over his head. A savage cried out again, and the calls of many others followed. They were closing in. Ralph leapt up and started running. He looked around frantically for a landmark, but all he saw were burning trees and smoke. Through the smog, Ralph caught a glimpse of shining white sand, salvation amidst the apocalypse that the island had become. Ralph ran towards the shore and collapsed, panting, on the hot sand. His lungs were filled with smoke, and he struggled to breathe. "This is the end," he gasped.

"Are you all right, young man?" It was a man dressed in a white uniform. Ralph recognized him as a naval officer.

Ralph looked up in shock. "I…I…" he coughed.

"Is there anyone else with you, or are you alone?" The officer looked at the burning trees with curiosity.

"They're right beh-" Ralph looked behind him. The others had not followed him out of the forest. Surprised, Ralph turned around. Several heads peeked out from behind a large rock. Slowly, Ralph stood up and walked over to them. Surely they would not try anything in front of the naval officer.

Ralph walked up to the rock and saw Samneric and the remaining littluns behind it. They were wiping their masks off their faces. "They – they've come," said Ralph, still in a daze. "Where are the others?"

Samneric looked up at Ralph and solemnly pointed to the trees. Ralph followed the direction of their fingers and found Jack, Roger, Bill, and the others standing just out of the naval officer's sight, spears in hand.

"Well, come on," said Ralph, looking at the others.

Jack stomped his foot and glared at Ralph. "We're not going. Leave," he cried.

Ralph looked at Jack in amazement. "What do you mean, 'we're not going'?"

"We're not going." Jack looked around at the others. "We have everything we need here. Hunting, Castle Rock, all the food and pigs we can kill…go. We don't need you, your stupid ship, nothing. We can manage by ourselves."

"Please Jack, you have to come. Don't be stupid…" Ralph pleaded.

"I said leave! Don't you see? We are fine here! We can't go back, we can never go back, we won't go back!" With that, Jack threw his spear down at Ralph's feet. The others cried out in agreement.

Ralph looked into Jack's eyes. Something was different. Where Jack, head boy, leader of the choir had been, was now a savage, a chief. Where there had once been bossiness and smugness was now fire and evil. Ralph looked at the others, and they were the same. An image of three boys walking through the woods, talking and laughing, flashed across his mind, and he struggled not to cry.

Jack looked darkly at Ralph. "The island will look after us now. Leave!" Ralph turned and left.

As Ralph climbed onto the boat with the others, he felt something hit his ear. He looked down and picked up hard, white fragments. "There's no one else?" asked the naval officer.

"N-no," said Ralph, putting the fragments in the pocket of his tattered shorts. He looked back one last time at the island with tears in his eyes as they sailed away. At the edge of the forest on a stake was the fresh head of a pig, bloody and grinning at them triumphantly.

I chose to write an ending with Jack and the savages staying on the island. Throughout the novel, Jack, Roger, and the others became so consumed with hunting. They thought what they did was a game ("That was a good game," – page 126), and let the evil inside them take over, which became evident in their delirious killing of Simon (they thought he was the beast) and Piggy (Roger had no remorse), until it came to a point where they were the evil. They didn't care about the fire; they didn't care about rescue.

Jack throwing the remains of the conch shell represents their final break from authority and rule. Ralph puts the fragments into his pocket as a tribute to Piggy. The Lord of the Flies (aka. the Devil) looks at Ralph with triumph. He has won. Jack says "'The island will look after us now'", representing the boys' descent into darkness.


End file.
